


The Devil You Know

by BlackPetals4



Series: This Show Is Cancelled [1]
Category: Supernatural, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Angels, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Is a Good Bro, Chaos, Gen, Identity Reveal, Poor Lucifer (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 14:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18100730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackPetals4/pseuds/BlackPetals4
Summary: It was a sunny Wednesday afternoon, four p.m., and the Avengers were about to die in a plane crash.





	The Devil You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Hello guys (and girls and *)!  
> It's been a while...okay, that's an understatment. I'll admit when I said it might take me a while to post new OS or chapters I didn't mean this long. It's been almost a year! Time just flies by so fast. Of course, that's no excuse, but I've been very very busy with uni, work and my family. I hope that at least some of you are still there and willing to read on. I can't promise that I'll be able to update regularly, but at least a bit faster than this. 
> 
> This is part 1 of the series and it will be continued in the next OS!  
> Also, the third chapter of this story will be an alternative version of the first. 
> 
> Thank you so much for showing interest in my work! Now, I won't ramble any longer and let you continue to the story.

It was a sunny Wednesday afternoon, four p.m., and the Avengers were about to die in a plane crash.

Their flight should have been a short one, a routine one, nothing special. Just coming home from a barely exciting and not really challenging mission, a bit tired, but all right. They wouldn’t have needed Thor, even if he weren’t in Asgard and therefore unreachable, or Bruce, who had still come as back-up since he had been at the tower when they got their call.  
The Quinjet was faster than any other aircraft SHIELD owned and would have made it back to the Helicarrier in less than an hour. Traveling times were important for a team that might have to respond to world threatening events any given moment. The Quinjet had performed admirably well, that wasn’t the issue here.

The reason they were racing towards the unforgiving hard ground at deadly speeds was a wholly different one.  
Everything should still be in working order, as far as Clint could tell. The archer functioned as the Avenger’s official pilot on many of their missions and this was hardly a dangerous flight. He had navigated through heavy fire, through invading alien and robot armies and he had always managed to land relatively safely.

So, why were they crashing? Why did all his instruments go haywire? The answer was currently lying on the floor.  
Tony was a shivering mess, lying in a fetal position and clutching his head in agony. His face was contorted into a sharp grimace, his breaths erratic and flat. Clearly, this hadn’t been planned. In no way was he getting any air at this point. It seemed that he wasn’t aware of his surroundings either.

Bruce was trying to stay calm as held onto a seat next to him in a vice grip, his knuckles white, flickering green here and there. He sat in a crouch on the floor next to Tony, trying to reach him through the pain and confusion. His voice was carrying the steady tone of a doctor who had talked many patients though fevered dreams and panic-attacks. As well as the understanding of someone who went through them himself a lot. If not for the Hulk, Bruce would be afraid for his life right now. Different than the rest of his team he knew he would survive the crash easily enough. The underlying current of urgency and slight desperation in his voice was unavoidable in their situation though. He might be distracting himself from the issue by focusing entirely on Tony, not the impending crash.

Not once did he touch Tony though. The coldness emanating from their teammate would have been warning enough, had they not already been cautioned against doing so beforehand. Now, they understood why. A layer of frost had begun to form on his clothes and the floor around him, brushing the seats with icy fingers.

All kinds of instruments gave their shrill warning beeps to form a symphony of chaos in the background, where Clint and Natasha tried to get the plane under their control again. It was to no avail, nothing responded correctly, most switches they flicked or buttons they pressed had no effect at all. No amount of cursing seemed to help either.

Bruce could swear he was seeing his breath pushing steam through the air. His skin was covered in goosebumps and he was shivering, if not as forcefully as Tony. His fingers were already going numb. Little invisible needles were stinging every uncovered piece of skin with threatening intent. They burned and bit like teeth. Bruce was sure of it, this didn’t feel like the air on a cold winter’s day, but alive. Defensive and on edge. He was being assessed. The cold was seeping through his clothes at a fast rate. He wasn’t being attacked per se, he couldn’t detect any maliciousness in the consciousness surrounding him. The feeling was akin to being watched by a growling cornered animal. Dangerous, yes. But more desperate than anything else. Unsure, afraid, hurt and warning not to get any closer. Aggressive, no. Rubbing over his arms had little effect other than to reassure himself that he wasn’t an ice-sculpture yet. Scientifically speaking, this was all very interesting. Locally dropping the temperature was a mere side effect of whatever was actually happening inside Tony’s body. Speaking as Tony’s friend, he just hoped the man wasn’t dying from hypothermia.  
If he was feeling the cold like Bruce did, maybe he would get better if…

It could work, maybe. Bruce made a quick decision and ran over to a small closet where he kept spare clothes, a pillow and some blankets. They came in handy on the longer missions after he changed back to human form and felt like he had been hit by a bus – twice. He grabbed the blankets and ran back to Tony, nearly falling multiple times from the turbulences. When he returned from his short adventure across the small space, he threw the pieces of fabric over his friend’s shivering form. Didn’t get patients in shock blankets too? Being reunited with the rest of your formerly separated self must be stressful as well as painful. The blankets were a very human gesture, but he hoped a small part of Tony would remember the effects and respond subconsciously. Bruce’s breaths were still visible in the cold air, indicating a temperature below the freezing point. The flickering pinpricks of another presence on his skin weren’t gone; but breathing seemed a little easier than before.

“Hey Tony, I got you some blankets. They’ll warm you right up.”

He risked touching an arm through the protective fabric and when nothing changed, he continued with soothing motions. His face and hands were stinging fiercely. The air shifted, then stilled. Listening.

“Come on, it’s getting a little dangerous in here. The plane is crashing. I know you can hear me. Wake up, Tony!”

“We have to jump! Everyone, get a parachute!” Steve finally shouted, shaking Clint’s shoulder slightly.

His order carried over to Bruce’s location as well. The strange bubble of tense silence surrounding the two geniuses on the floor seemed to pop in an instant. Reality came crashing back in to run Bruce over with no small amount of panic like am army tank. (He hated army tanks.) They had little time left. Leaving the plane seemed to be the only option now. But the doctor wouldn’t abandon his friend right now. He would be fine regardless, but Tony may not. The air had slowly gotten warmer while he had focused on Steve. The impossible ice crystals were receding rapidly. The impression of eyes slowly closing played in front of his inner eye. Not dismissing him but accepting him and preparing to respond with a calmer mind.

“You can leave without me! I’ll stay here and try to get him out too! He’s getting better!” he called back.

The others had no time to argue over his decision, as the ground was coming closer rapidly. They needed to get out now, or it would be far more difficult not to go splat when landing. Clint called out for Bruce, not having heard his answer due to having turned off his hearing aids.

“Bruce, are you jumping too? Can you get Tony out?”

Going by the noises he could hear, they were all wrestling with their parachutes now. Those things were trickier to slip on than they looked. Interrupting his attempts to rouse Tony for a short moment he looked up to the rest of his team and started answering much the same while using his Hands in sign language:

“Go! We’ll be fine! Just get –”

Before he could finish his sentence, the man on the floor suddenly moved. He hadn’t stopped shivering and he was still clearly in pain. His eyes were still tightly shut, his jaw clenched tightly. Yet, his breaths were getting calmer and he was getting himself off the floor into a kneeling position. Trembling hands used the seats on the side as leverage to keep himself steady. The mountain of blankets was shifting. One hand was quickly clutching them tightly on the front, so they would stay on his shoulders. They must have helped after all. Bruce was glad.

Steve had stopped fighting with his parachute for a second, causing Natasha to look up as well. She was ready to go and standing near the exit ramp. Clint had finally slipped his own parachute as well and headed towards Natasha when the plane suddenly groaned beneath them. It shuddered. Slowly, the angle of the floor started to right itself. Over-balancing at the sudden shift, Clint was nearly thrown into a wall. They needed to bend their knees at the pressure of ascending at a rapid pace. After they had all managed to straighten themselves again, they stared at the obvious source for the change of direction. Tony was sitting next to Bruce, who had backed away a few feet. His free hand was lying flat on the ground, fingers splayed out. His form trembled even harder than before, as if he were gripping the entire jet, lifting it upwards by sheer force of will.

That was entirely possible, Steve reminded himself. He had heard what Director Fury had explained about the supernatural. A warm wind brushed by. Touching them with hesitance, humming slightly with the undercurrent of power, tingling his senses in way that was hard to describe. The constant noise of failing instruments fell silent. He didn’t even notice as he continued to watch Tony, slightly disbelieving of what he was seeing. He did not miss the way the man was still trembling in effort to stay upright. From where Steve was standing, he couldn’t see the billionaires face, but the look Bruce was casting at him seemed to be one of concern mixed with incredulity.

Slowly, the drawn-up shoulders dropped a bit and the tension began to seep out of his form. Buried underneath his blankets, he continued to kneel there, in the middle of the plane. His knees were drawn apart for balance. They stopped shaking as well. With a deliberate exhale that rung loudly through their anticipation-filled silence he went lax, letting go of the invisible weight of the plane he had lifted just now. The Quinjet remained on course, climbing steadily upwards, not wavering even the slightest.

Then, something must have happened for Bruce drew a sudden, sharp breath. Eyes widening at a sight only he could see. Dropping her parachute, Natasha walked towards Bruce and Tony. Clint and Steve followed immediately after her.

“Tony, can you hear me? Are you all right?” Bruce asked hesitantly, stretching out his hand, before reconsidering.

No answer came forward. He remained unresponsive. Heat was now emanating from his form in a visible haze. Opposed to the cold they had seen earlier. The sudden change of temperature had caught Bruce off guard. Since he had been the one to sit in the cold the before, he was now experiencing the shift even more extremely. Natasha walked around Tony, followed by the two men, giving his form a wider berth than normal. Standing next to Bruce, they saw what had startled him. Tony’s eyes where fully opened now, glowing in a white light that screamed of the power they had experienced mere moments ago. Their entire plane had been bathed in it. It had caused the thing to shut down nearly completely and had been bright enough to burn even through their eyelids they had closed tightly to protect them from it, as Tony had told them they should. Their hands had been needed to block out the awful ringing sound that had nearly burst their eardrums. Clint was sure his ears would have gotten even more damaged hadn’t he shut off his hearing aids right away. Natasha sure had looked pained, he imagined she still felt the aftermath in form of a slight tinnitus. She was tipping he head in that peculiar manner she always did after they escaped an explosion – not that they were nearly caught in explosions all that often. Spies were much more careful about causing ruckus than Hollywood films would suggest. They were covert operatives, not action heroes! Mostly. For his children, he would always try to be a hero. And he was an Avenger now. A fact that he was not so secretly proud of. Steve was the only one who seemed completely fine out of their team. Outwardly. Apart from his reaction to Tony’s short-cut explanation earlier.

A few minutes ago, they had found out something about their teammate that was had been prone to shake their world. Especially Steve’s. Everyone would need some time to digest those facts and it would most likely change the team dynamics permanently. Right now, they didn’t even know if Tony would stay on the team at all. Or if he would leave them to take back another name he had once borne, another identity he had formerly discarded. What he had told them was mostly some little pieces of knowledge hastily thrown together in a vague semblance of order. It had sounded like an explanation, but he had somehow managed to avoid answering the bulk of their questions entirely. The only reason he gotten away with it was the fact that there had been no time to discuss the situation further. Everything he would say now to explain himself would mean they would have to take what he had said earlier on this matter as the truth.

 

__________

 

_“The last seal is breaking!”_

_Tony’s loud voice cut into the comfortable silence that came from completing a mission with success._

_“Sorry, what?” A tired Bruce replied, sitting up._

_“It’s being broken, I never thought…” Tony murmured, shocked._

_They had all heard his alarmed, yet excited call and turned towards the billionaire. The plane was on autopilot, so Clint was able to shift his focus towards him as well._

_Natasha frowned and asked: “Which seal, what are you talking about Stark?” with no small amount of confusion._

_Hopefully, their genius didn’t go insane during the mission and they had all missed the signs… With a slightly lost look, Tony opened his seatbelt and stood up, pacing in front of the seats on the right side of their aircraft._

_“Uh…there is something I haven’t told you. About me. I mean, there are a lot of things you will never know about me, nor would you want to, but this is different.”, he rambled._

_Bruce caught his hand as he walked by the third time, holding him in place. “You aren’t making sense, Tony. What are you talking about?”_

_A small pause. He looked at them all individually with an intensity that was frightening._

_“You all know about the supernatural. We were all briefed about possible threats that could come from that side. Ghosts, witches, werewolves, djinns, demons…” he started eventually._

_Steve fidgeted a bit at the last one but nodded expectantly. They still couldn’t fathom where this was going. Except if Tony wanted to tell them that he was secretly a monster. Which was nigh impossible, SHIELD knew how to ward most things off and they would have known by now._

_“I don’t have a lot of time to explain this. Basically, since demons are known to exist, you have probably wondered about angels.” Steve opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Tony, who was talking faster and faster now._

_“They are very much real too, they just haven’t been to Earth much in centuries. In the last few months a lot has been going on. I’ll get to that later, if we have the time, but I need to tell you first that…”, he seemed hesitant, uncertain at how to best say it._  
_“I’m not human.”, he finally concluded._

_Wait, what?_

_Then, deciding to downplay his nervousness at their reaction, he added: “Shocking news, I know.”, covering his mouth with his hand for a second, opening his eyes comically wide, before dropping his hand and shrugging._

_Shocking news indeed. They all thought they must have misheard. He was talking about angels. Was he saying what they thought he was saying? There was no way Tony Stark could be an actual angel. Just. No. He was the last person anybody would have thought to be an angel. The opposite would be more likely. Was he playing them? Steve’s face had gone blank. He wasn’t sure how to deal with this information. Then it slowly sunk in. His teammate was deadly serious about this and Steve had no reason to believe he would suddenly go crazy and ramble nonsense. This was way too sudden and random to have been planned. No, he wasn’t insane, and he wasn’t lying either. He would have gone for something more believable if that was the case. Stark fully believed what he was saying, that didn’t mean it was the truth. They hadn’t seen anything hinting at him being anything else. They had often heard jokes about him being a robot or an alien, but none of them were serious. Just jokes told between scientists who couldn’t understand the genius’ thought process and covered up their own insecurities and complexes they had developed in the man’s presence by laughing about some of his stranger traits. Like how he sometimes just forgot to eat and sleep, as if he wasn’t used to having to do this regularly. What if he didn’t? Not human. What about his parents, Howard? Steve felt his chest constricting in a familiar feeling of an impending asthma-attack, before remembering that he didn’t suffer this condition anymore and it was more of a ball of hot, white panic clawing at him. It was still very much unpleasant._

_Tony Stark wasn’t human. He had never been human? Was any of this supposed to make sense? Why would he break his silence now? Something had changed, and he had needed to tell them about himself before…what exactly? Natasha had a contemplative look on her face, calculating and sharp. She didn’t miss how Tony was getting excited now, eyes wide, mouth twitching._

_“Shit. Oh. My. God.”, someone mumbled, probably Clint, wo shook his head in disbelief._

_“Not really. He hasn’t been around for…a very long time.”, Tony joked._

_At least, Steve hoped this was a joke. He really couldn’t deal with this tidbit of information right now._

_“Anyways, I’m getting my Grace back, finally. It’s been locked away for so long and now, someone is about to break it free.”, Tony grinned widely._

_There was the reason he told them. Steve doubted he would have said anything otherwise. He desperately tried to remember what SHIELD had on angels and failed._

_“Grace?”, Bruce asked hoarsely. The scientist couldn’t get out much more, still feeling like he had been struck by lightning. Yet, his curiosity had won over his shock._

_“Angels are made of Grace, we don’t have a soul. Our Grace is also our power source. I only have a small part of mine left that works like a soul would. I’m stuck inside this body, in physical form. It’s mine though. I mean, I was born into this body, so I’m not possessing someone.”_

_“Like a demon? Angels normally don’t have bodies?” Steve had finally found his voice and seemed to be disturbed at the idea of God’s angels using someone else’s body. From what he had gathered, Howard had been human though, at least._

_“We are made of light, essentially. Only very few people can survive seeing our true forms. You would need to protect yourself from it. Otherwise, your eyes would burn out and our true voices would shatter your eardrums. We need a body to interact with this world, but we need permission to get in. Not like demons.”_

_This calmed Steve a bit. But then, he didn’t know what angels did to get a human to agree at being used. They were nothing better than demons. Tony chose to stay quiet about this fact though, for now. It wouldn’t help._

_“You lost most of your Grace and became human, how? And more importantly, why?” Natasha asked carefully._

_She was cautious. It was clear that Stark was saying the truth, but there was too much unknown about this, he had kept many secrets from them. The situation could be more dangerous than they knew. Tony’s smile lost a bit of its intensity._

_“That’s a long story and we don’t have the time right now. I can tell you later. For now, let’s just say I had a disagreement with my family. They can be such struck up pricks, self-righteous and arrogant and blinded by their so-called holiness and ineffability…sorry, where was I? Yeah, I broke off a part of my Grace sent it to Earth where it found a bloodline able to carry an angel. A miracle happened, and a formerly infertile woman, aka Maria Stark, got pregnant, et cetera. I’ve only got a few blurred memories left from when I was an angel. A human brain can’t process that much data and it can’t comprehend much about heaven and angels in general.”, he shrugged. Then, his gaze hardened, and he met all their eyes individually._

_“I remember enough, though. I know who I was and who I am. I’m different now, but I don’t regret my past. Remember what they say, history is written by the victors.”_

_She nodded thoughtfully, whilst Clint, Bruce and Steve looked even more confused. He sounded like he had been a criminal. Like there had been a war with two fractions fighting. This ‘disagreement’ must have been a bit larger than he let on._

_“Alright,” Bruce visibly tried to calm himself, “how will you get your Grace back and what will happen after?”, Bruce wanted to know._

_Would he still be Tony? Their teammate, his friend?_

_“Do you trust me?”, he asked back._

_“Of course.” Bruce replied without hesitation._

_Steve contemplated for a second, but then nodded. He hadn’t told them about being an angel until now, but he’d had a good reason. Without his Grace he wouldn’t have been able to prove that he was an angel. Steve would have taken it as a joke and the others wouldn’t have believed him either. Even if he had been a criminal, he would withhold judgement until he had the whole story._  
_Clint mustered Tony with his sharp eyes, willing himself to see more. To see past what people wanted to see and what Tony wanted them to see. The billionaire was good at donning different personas and making unexpected turns to evade questions and catch everybody by surprise if someone got up too close and personal. This was real. He couldn’t detect any dishonesty._

_“Yes.”, he finally said, not explaining himself further._

_Natasha had watched Clint. She trusted him. He was perhaps the only person she would ever trust fully. His word was enough for her to decide, so she gave Tony a single, curt nod as well. She could detect liars just as well and had come to the same opinion as her partner. The genius was visibly relieved._

_“It’s going to be a though ride, all these memories will mess with my head for sure. They aren’t exactly all flowers and rainbows…I don’t know for sure what I’ll do afterwards. I want to continue being an Avenger, I think. That’s why…you can’t tell Fury. Or anybody else for that matter.”_  
_The SHIELD agents and Steve tensed. He shook his head, talking more urgently now._

_“All right, we’ll talk about that later. The seal is almost broken. The last lock on the door, you could say. When my Grace gets out, it’ll come here, to me. You’ll have to shut your eyes tightly and cover your ears. Don’t touch me until I’ve got it under control again.”_

_“Why not?”, Bruce inquired._

_“My Grace is potent, it’ll be quite painful to reunite. I could hurt you without meaning to. You've ever been missing a large part of yourself? I guess not, but I can tell you it’s awful. Being whole is much better than being in pieces, there is no price I wouldn’t pay to have it back.”_

_With those words, he looked upwards and grinned. Then they heard it. A faint high-pitched sound, drawing closer by the second. Soon, it was ringing in their ears so persistently it started to hurt. Clint switched off his hearing aids. He covered his ears as well for good measure and saw Bruce, Natasha and Steve doing the same. A white bright light enclosed the room, the machine trembled. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was Tony. Hair ruffled, still smiling, lifting his arms as if to welcome his Grace back. Bright spots danced behind his eyelids, he had to turn away. Power pressed down on them all as the plane shook._

 

__________

 

Tony blinked, a smile creeping on his face. His body radiating light and power and heat. A brilliant halo. Eyes ablaze, he rolled his shoulders and then they saw. Huge inky black shadows where unfolding from behind his back. A massive pair of wings spread out majestically, dark feathers not of this world bathed in holy light. An angel. Now they believed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For the timeline: Thor: The Dark World hasn't happend yet, that's why he isn't in the story. We are a bit before IM3.   
> The next OS of the series will include the reason the Avengers knew about Tony being Lucifer in part 5 as well as one reason why they were all right with that. And it will finally have more plot than the parts I've posted until now.   
> If you saw a mistake or want to ask something, just tell me.   
> Thanks for reading!^^


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